


The Reluctant Royalty AU: An Outline

by Silvermags



Series: Stories I wanted to share with you but lack the time/energy/willpower to write properly [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Sugar, Dragon Alya, F/M, Fictional Religions, Fox Luka, Friendship, Identity Reveal, Ladybug is a literal queen, Miraculous Glamours, Monkey Nino, No Bashing, Royalty AU, Turtle Kagami, kwamii swap, no salt, salt is food not fic, she’s not happy about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 22:01:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvermags/pseuds/Silvermags
Summary: The miraculous are a lot older than the order of the guardians, and one group in particular is less than pleased with how the order of the guardians has been handling things.In other news, Ladybug is not thrilled to discover the hidden kingdom of magic users that worship her as their goddess queen.  It's all she can do to keep Paris in one piece, what do they expect her to do with a COUNTRY?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Stories I wanted to share with you but lack the time/energy/willpower to write properly [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181435
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34
Collections: Good Shit To Read Again AKA GSTRA





	The Reluctant Royalty AU: An Outline

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ladybug's Choice (Or Lack Thereof)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130248) by [Ava_Dakedavra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ava_Dakedavra/pseuds/Ava_Dakedavra). 



> I am way, way too fond of the reluctant royalty trope. This was partly inspired by me reading the inspired by work and going, okay, but what if they were focused on Ladybug rather than Marinette?

  * So, our story begins thousands of years before canon.



  * The order of the guardians is actually a pretty young organization, relatively speaking. They are especially young as compared to how long the miraculous have actually existed.



  * Before the order of the guardians existed, there was a small but powerful kingdom that thrived on magic, ruled by the Ladybug of the time (hereafter referred to as Queen Ladybird to distinguish her from Marinette) and her brother the Black Cat (referred to as Prince Black Cat to distinguish him from Adrien). Under their rule, their land and people were healthy, happy, and prosperous.



  * However, there was a problem. They had no potential heirs they were willing to entrust the kingdom to when they died. No one who was able and willing was suitable, no one who was suitable and willing was able, and no one who was able and suitable was willing, not even of Queen Ladybird and Prince Black Cat’s own children.



  * The two sibling rulers spent years searching for a way to ensure that their kingdom would be taken care of when they were gone, because they knew how easy it would be for one careless or greedy monarch to destroy everything that had been built and leave their beloved home and people shells of themselves.



  * Finally, they hit on a solution. They decreed that from then on, the throne was to be held by the holder of the ladybug miraculous, with the black cat holder as second choice if the ladybug isn’t active or has issues that prevent him or her from fulfilling those duties.



  * They knew what Tikki looks for in a bearer, and so long as it’s a good bearer, they figure, they’ll also be a good monarch. If they aren’t, Tikki can and will take her miraculous and find someone who is. They were going to give the black cats equal status to the ladybugs, but Plagg decided he didn’t want that much responsibility, so now he's the second choice.



  * They codify this in law, and there is much celebrating from the populace. Queen Ladybird and Prince Black Cat look forward to potentially centuries of prosperity for their land.



  * Sadly, it doesn’t last. 



  * There is a massive cataclysm, and the enemy that the miraculous were first created to defend against reemerged. Every miraculous and holder on the planet is called to battle.



  * They win. The enemy is defeated for good and earth is safe, but at a cost. Most of the miraculous holders are dead, including Queen Ladybird and Prince Black Cat.



  * The few that survived gather the miraculous of the fallen and swear to use them for good, to defend the earth. They are the precursors to the modern order of the guardians.



  * Problem with that is, Queen Ladybird and Prince Black Cat did not make the whole “My successor as Ladybug is also my successor as queen, so please make sure Tikki and Plagg make it back to my kingdom” thing clear and none of the other bearers actually knew her, or each other for that matter, and the final battle happened a very long way away from her home. So that bit never came to the ancient guardian’s attention.



  * The people of Queen Ladybird’s kingdom, however, are capable of scrying, are watching the battle and aftermath, and don’t know that the ancient guardians don’t know. So far as they are concerned, they stole the symbols of royalty off their previous rulers’ corpses and kidnapped the arbiters who were supposed to select the next monarch off to lands unknown.



  * The people of Queen Ladybird’s kingdom are ticked off to put it mildly.



  * They know they can’t go after the nascent order, after the amount of power they just saw brought to bear that is now in the hands of the guardians, but they can hold a grudge like there’s no tomorrow.



  * After a few stealthy attempts to retrieve the ladybug and black cat miraculouses failed and one of them was nearly tracked all the way back to the kingdom, they, having become rather paranoid and assuming the infant order was made up of thieves and murderers who would pillage their land, decided to protect themselves.



  * All their strongest mages came together to cast a powerful spell over their entire land, hiding it from both magical and mundane sight and isolating themselves from the world, for fear of discovery and reprisal. Even memories were blocked, until no one on the outside knew their kingdom existed. They faded into myth and legend, and even less than that.



  * And for centuries, _millenia_ , they waited. No one entered, and no one left. The only exception was when they got word of the ladybug miraculous having a new holder and a party was sent to retrieve their new king or queen. Unfortunately, due to the way that the order of the guardians operated, by the time they got there the unfortunate ladybug would be amnesiac and untraceable.



  * The fury they feel for the order of the guardians at this point is absolutely unreal, for the record.



  * This continues to the modern day, when the events of canon start happening. See, as technology became more widespread, the order and the miraculous went further and further underground to protect their secrecy from a world that by and large no longer believed in magic. The kingdom went decades without a single hint as to the location of the ladybug, and were starting to think maybe it was lost forever.



  * Then Hawkmoth happens. And suddenly the entire world knows where Ladybug is.



  * They watch the reports carefully for a while, just to make sure it’s the real deal, and they fall in love with their little princess, so brave, so noble, so unaware of her birthright. They resolve immediately to bring her home.



  * Now, it has been a very, very long time since the time of Queen Ladybird and Prince Black Cat. Language changes, stories that are passed down change, records are lost or damaged, etcetera. So the story of Queen Ladybird and her brother, and the things surrounding them, are correspondingly muddled.



  * Current tradition in the kingdom holds that the Ladybug is the reincarnation of their ancient goddess queen, the lady of creation and harbinger of spring and plenty. The Black Cat is her protector, shadow, and right hand, the lord of destruction who was tamed by love of his queen and acts as her faithful shield. The goddess and her brother/father/husband/son (the tellings are a touch confused on this point) were slain long ago by trickery and their souls forced into a cycle of reincarnation, doomed to forever wander the earth bearing new names and new faces every lifetime, unaware of their own divinity, a curse laid by those jealous of their power that will last until their goddess queen is brought home and restored to her rightful place on the throne.



  * Now that they know where the wandering deities are located, it is their sacred and solemn duty to end their wandering and bring them home.



  * The team sent out to retrieve Ladybug from her exile is made up of only the finest warriors, the most skilled mages, the most devoted priests. They come prepared to honor their new queen, their _goddess_ , and to destroy whatever might threaten their bringing her and the black cat home.



  * Obviously that’s not going to go the way they plan. At all.



  * In Paris, Marinette is going about her normal life. Schoolgirl by day, superhero by night and/or whenever Hawkmoth gets a bee in his bonnet.



  * She really has quite enough to be getting on with, in all honesty. Dealing with her crush on Adrien. Keeping up with her schoolwork in between attacks. Dealing with the events of Miracle Queen, including what to do about Chloe and who she can call on for backup now that all of her backup besides Chat Noir isn’t safe anymore. Figuring out how to extricate Alya from her friendship with Lila, which is starting to tip over from just dishonest into outright controlling and toxic. Her design work. And all of this is separate from acting as Paris’s hero and defending against the akuma. The last thing this girl needs is another stressor to complicate her life.



  * The goddess queen retrieving delegation does not care. They arrive in Paris and start making waves.



  * No one is quite sure what to make of these weird people all in red who are roaming the streets with swords and showing up to all the akuma battles and staring the whole time at Ladybug, full on kneeling before her anytime she looks in their direction.



  * Frankly it’s creeping Ladybug out, and Chat Noir is not having with that.



  * Alya actually manages to get the leader to agree to an interview. He spends the whole time loudly and fervently explaining that Ladybug is their lost goddess queen, cursed to roam the earth without her memories, and they have come to restore her to her throne and power.



  * The Ladyblog generally and Alya specifically lose their ever loving minds.



  * Marinette is also losing her mind, but from stress rather than excitement.



  * Tikki honestly hadn’t realized that the kingdom was still around. She thought they’d been wiped out in the cataclysm that the great enemy caused, or else just kind of dissolved out of existence like most civilizations that age had by this point.



  * Tikki is sadly less help than one might hope because it’s been literal millenia since she’s been back and all her information is out of date to put it mildly. She’s honestly not sure where the whole goddess thing came from. Her bearers have been worshipped as goddesses before, but she doesn’t remember Queen Ladybird being one of them.



  * This does nothing for Marinette’s stress levels.



  * Plagg thinks the whole thing is hilarious. He is _so_ glad that he demanded they not saddle him with this way back when. His cat at the time agreed, of course, there’s a reason Prince Black Cat was a prince and not king and that was because he, like Plagg, did not want that responsibility.



  * Adrien is rather bemused, mostly. He’s not quite sure what to do about this. Except run interference when Ladybug needs him to, of course, that was a given.



  * Marinette, once she has the full story from both Tikki and the Ladyblog, resolves to avoid the heck out of this. Maybe if they can’t get ahold of her, they’ll get tired and go home. Clearly they’ve been doing just fine all these years without a Ladybug Queen, maybe if she gives them the run around for long enough they’ll realize they don’t actually want her.



  * She is aware this is a long shot at best, but she has no better ideas.



  * Lila attempts to claim to be the high priestess in training for the modern religion of Ladybug. She does this in earshot of the actual high priest and gets a delightfully loud, thorough, and public dressing down on how she is a petty child trying to ride on the coattails of greatness, that she has no inkling of the true power and glory of their goddess, and she is lucky that their lady of creation is merciful and the lord of destruction respects her wishes, otherwise she would have been smitten where she stood. His imagery is very evocative. Someone throws up. Marinette, who was also in earshot, is torn between horror and glee.



  * Lila doesn’t claim to have anything to do with Ladybug anymore.



  * Adrien wants to know what this “Lord of Destruction” business is because he doesn’t recall anything about that in his contract.



  * At Adrien’s bribery, Plagg eavesdrops on the priests to find out what exactly they’re dealing with (and nearly gets caught more than once). Plagg finds out that current tradition says that the black cat is the beloved brother/husband/son/father of the ladybug goddess queen, who could be her perfect equal in all things or even more powerful, but out of love and respect for the lady of creation and her works, chose to take a step back from the world to let her creations flourish and instead turned his destruction on those things that would threaten his lady or her works.



  * Adrien is unsure how he feels about this. Plagg is realizing they have a problem, because he knows that a certain someone is going to lose her mind when she hears this.



  * Marinette has exactly no desire to be worshipped, and she is frankly starting to get annoyed at how they seem to think Chat Noir is her subordinate rather than her partner. She cares more about that bit than Chat Noir does.



  * When they realize that the process to retrieve their goddess queen is going to be a touch more involved than “Go to queen. Explain birthright to queen. Return home with queen.” the retrieval delegation calls in reinforcements and starts preparing for the long haul.



  * They purchase a plot of land and raise a grand temple/embassy with magic in one night. It’s beautiful, of course, black and white marble, golden braziers of magical fire, vibrant red pennants and hangings, breathtaking gardens of plants and flowers unlike any seen before, and of course, statues, paintings, and regular musical performances dedicated to the glory of their goddess, with a couple offerings thrown in for Chat Noir too.



  * Ladybug avoids that part of town like the plague.



  * Hawkmoth keeps sending akumas in that direction, whether because he hates the temple and wants it torn down or because he’s taking petty revenge on Ladybug for not giving him what he wants and forcing her into close proximity with people that make her uncomfortable on purpose no one knows. Either way it’s an extremely bleepish thing to do.



  * A couple times when an akuma was giving her and Chat Noir more trouble than usual, the warriors of the temple came charging out in red and gold armor waving swords and spears. This does nothing for Ladybug’s blood pressure, and Chat Noir is getting really tired of having to haul these people out of the danger zone before they get their dumb butts mind controlled.



  * It’s agreed that this can no longer be allowed to continue. The help they give, what little there is, is outweighed by how much trouble they cause while doing it. The question is how to stop it.



  * Obviously the easiest thing to do is get reinforcements, so that they won't feel the need to interfere in the battles.



  * Problem with that being, Miracle Queen happened. All of their backup got their id’s revealed, and thus are no longer reliable backup. On top of that, Rena Rouge, their most experienced backup hero, is currently trapped in a toxic friendship she can’t see for what it is.



  * See, after the whole priestess debacle Alya started to doubt Lila’s stories, so Lila changed tactics. The lies were bad enough, but they have nothing on the gaslighting, guilt tripping, and love bombing that Lila has going on now. It is all but literally killing Marinette to see the girl who was her best friend, who finally gave her the courage to stand up to Chloe, shrink and twist into a hesitant parody of herself.



  * Fun fact, doing research for this I looked up the warning signs of a toxic friend, and frankly Lila hits a disturbing number of them.



  * Giving Alya a miraculous and bringing her back on as a hero could help pull her out of that, or it could make her an exposure risk if she’s less cautious than she should be around Lila, or gets manipulated into letting something slip. For now, it’s not a risk worth taking.



  * Bringing Nino, their second most experienced backup, on without Alya is also frankly a disaster waiting to happen, especially when their relationship is pretty healthy and they don’t want to be throwing secrets into the middle of it and potentially giving Lila more spots to get her hooks in. So he’s out too.



  * Add to that that they can’t bring anyone back on with their original miraculous, and they really do have a problem.



  * The thing is, the miraculous actually work best when you get one young and stick with it. The younger you are and the longer you use a single specific miraculous, the more powerful and versatile you are. Swapping is possible, but you’ll never be as good with any of them other than your own. Hawkmoth and Mayura are actually about half as powerful and versatile as they should be because they got their miraculouses as adults. To get full power out of a miraculous you needed to get it prior to twenty one, and the older you are, the longer it takes.



  * (I had to justify why giving the miraculous to teenagers made sense in-universe somehow. Master Fu was playing the long game and trying to make them as powerful as possible, figuring they’d need it before the end)



  * The kwamii’s are consulted, and they all figure that the previous temporary wielders are all young enough that switching now won’t make too big a difference in the long run, but a second swap would cripple their potential permanently.



  * So that’s reassuring! Anyway, in the end they decide to go with Luka and Kagami.



  * Luka, due to Second Chance, has probably spent the most subjective time on the battlefield than anyone other than the main two, and he’s probably the best at secrets too. Ladybug gives him the fox, because he’s good at music and at seeing through lies to what the truth is, an important skill for an illusionist. His new hero name is Skulk (and I will take constructive criticism on that). His mother and sister are baffled by his sudden interest in woodwinds.



  * Kagami hasn’t spent much time on the battlefield, but she does have training, which is probably the best they can hope for right now. She gets the turtle, because that puts her in the middle of the fight just where she likes to be, but also gives her a chance to learn to defend, rather than just attack. New hero name is Archelon (and I will not be taking constructive criticism on that)



  * Ladybug makes sure to tell Alya specifically that someone else getting the fox miraculous instead of her is not a slight against her, it’s just pure practicality. She’d already told all of the temporary heroes that they wouldn’t be getting the miraculouses back, why, and that it wasn’t their fault, this was just to make absolutely sure there wouldn’t be an akumatization.



  * Skulk and Archelon are actually remarkably effective in keeping the priests and warriors away when they come out, because none of them have any frame of reference for the turtle or fox. The ladybug is their goddess queen and the black cat is her protector, yes, good, they know how to deal with them, but none of the records said anything about a fox or turtle deity!



  * Ladybug notices this and starts bringing them in more and more often just to get a break from all the weirdos. Chat Noir would object, but the extra help is nice and he is actually taking a quiet bit of joy in tweaking the priests tails.



  * You would be stunned at how compatible his and Skulk’s senses of humor are. Ladybug certainly was. The two are a holy terror when they manage to get together. Ladybug tries to not let them get together in defense of her sanity, but is sabotaged by Archelon, who secretly thinks those two are really funny.



  * Ah, side note, at first Ladybug takes the miraculous back after each battle, but when she starts bringing them on more and more often it’s just easier to leave them with their wielders. As a bonus, that also makes it less likely for Hawkmoth to trace her back to her house the way he traced her back to Master Fu.



  * The priests at the temple are starting to get really frustrated and confused. Ladybug is still avoiding them like the plague, and they can’t tell why. She’s their goddess queen! All they want is to worship her, as is proper and deserved, and she won’t even look at them. She won’t accept their offerings, avoids their temple to her glory as if the sight of it physically pains her, and seems angry and annoyed when they attempt to aid her in battle! It makes no sense!



  * One of the younger priests, eighteen or nineteen at the oldest, actually manages to corner Ladybug on one of her patrols, a very public place, and begs on hands and knees to know why, why won’t their goddess just let them worship her?



  * As I believed I had mentioned, Marinette’s life is stress right now, and these jokers _are not helping_. So she kind of blows up a bit.



  * She’s only human after all. That’s what these guys just don’t seem to be getting, that she. Is. Human. She’s not a goddess, not a queen, she’s a normal person, living a normal life. She has friends, family, aspirations, none of which have anything to do with Ladybug. How many times does she have to tell you? Ladybug isn’t her, it’s just her job. Difficult as her life may be right now, she would not and will not give it up to become their queen. She wouldn’t even give it up to become Ladybug full time. She loves being Ladybug, but she loves her normal life too and she won’t give it up for anything. She’s not immortal, not infallible, not omnipotent. She already has an entire city full of people depending on her to protect them from Hawkmoth and fix the damage he does, and she lives every day in fear that this is finally going to be the day she loses, the day that those killed by Hawkmoth’s terror tactics finally stay dead. She does not need to add an entire country's worth of people depending on her for guidance on top of that. She’s already coming apart at the seams with the burdens she has, she is not letting them guilt her into taking on more. Ladybug is an alias, not a name. Ladybug is a job, not a life. She is, to put it bluntly, ticked that they want to change that. And while she’s thinking about it, she has a few choice words for you about how you’ve been disrespecting her partner and fellow heroes…



  * It is less than pretty, but Marinette probably also needed to get that off her chest. Pity that it was caught on a couple dozen phone cameras. 



  * Also a pity that the young priest gets akumatized on the spot, whether from being scorned and rebuked by his goddess in public or because he was devastated that his goddess thought so little of herself or some confusing mixture of the two, no one knows.



  * The reason no one knows is that every other priest in the vicinity (not all of them but a not insignificant number) immediately dog-pile him the moment the glowing mask thing appeared. It was the single easiest akuma cleansing Ladybug has ever had to complete.



  * Yeah you could make a probably pretty epic, difficult, heart-wrenching, dramatic, etc, akuma battle out of that. But this is my AU and I say dog pile, both because it’s funny and because I can’t actually write fight scenes worth spit.



  * The dressing-down and subsequent akuma battle prevention hit the internet within twenty minutes. Within a day the hashtag “Humannotagoddess” is trending. Ladybug hates her life.



  * Skulk isn’t actually laughing at her, but you can tell from the look on his face that he wants to. Chat Noir is sympathetic. Archelon doesn’t give a single darn, which is frankly refreshing when it’s all anyone ever talks about whether she’s being Ladybug or Marinette.



  * One good thing that is coming of this is that Alya is both being a bit more careful about filming the akuma battles and actually starting to come alive and find non-Lila-approved hobbies. Marinette would honestly put up with a lot for that, even the baring of her deepest frustrations and fears on the internet.



  * But maybe not letting Alya drag her to one of the musical performances at the temple to Ladybug. She does end up getting dragged in, along with Adrien and Nino, and honestly the only reason Marinette goes is because she knows Lila won’t set foot within three blocks of the temple and Alya will be too busy filming and asking questions to pick up the phone. It’s still the single most awkward three hours of her life, and considering who we’re talking about, that is saying something. Adrien is equally uncomfortable, so at least they can be uncomfortable together. Anything to get Alya away from Lila for a while.



  * Meanwhile, the priests have come to a conclusion. Their goddess doesn’t remember who she is! They knew, of course, that she didn’t realize she was a goddess, but they didn’t really quite realize that the eternal death and rebirth wandering the earth would come with parts of that life she would want to keep. Wouldn’t it defeat the point of the curse to make her happy? Unless it was another way to prevent her retaking her throne, by giving her things that would make her happy so that she wouldn’t want to.



  * Brilliant and evil, the priests think as they watch her leave another akuma battle. They try to catch her, but she vanishes, and in the crowd no one sees Marinette slip away. (Glamours for the win!)



  * She believes herself a normal human with a normal life who was merely gifted great power? Then we shall just have to find that normal human and prove otherwise. She has a family now? The family of our goddess must be honored as those who have made her so happy despite the curse deserve. She has aspirations? We will simply have to learn what they are, so that we can support our goddess.



  * That’s not going to go well for them, in case you didn’t realize. Saying it’s easier said than done would be an understatement, and you know that Ladybug is going to be making it harder for them at every step.



  * Going back to Luka and Kagami for a moment. They’ve noticed how much the priests stress Ladybug and Chat Noir out. They are frankly starting to worry for Ladybug’s blood pressure, and if they have to watch Chat Noir’s face fall after being called Ladybug’s subordinate one more time Archelon might actually stab someone, she doesn’t care that she has a shield instead of a sword now, she will find a way. Skulk will help.



  * The other thing is, Luka’s ability to hear heart songs doesn’t go away when he transforms into Skulk. He was kind of busy while he was being Viperion and wasn’t listening, but now? He’s listening alright, and he thinks the way that Ladybug and Chat Noir’s harmonies blend into a symphony when they fight side by side is the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.



  * Therefore, something must be done, they decide together. Their planning is meticulous, their conspiracy immaculate.



  * On a seemingly random night, Skulk calls Ladybug and Chat Noir, claiming there’s something they absolutely have to see right then. Of course, they both rush over, but when they do, Skulk is nowhere to be found.



  * There’s a tent set up on the rooftop. When Ladybug and Chat Noir investigate, they find a stock of movie night goodies, an air mattress and a lot of blankets, a little lantern, and a laptop with a movie Chat Noir had mentioned as being one he wanted to see if he could find the time and Ladybug said was amazing queued up.



  * This is when Skulk reappears, closing the tent flap and holding it closed when they try to leave. The two of them are going to relax and have a movie night together and they are going to like it!



  * At the same time, Archelon appears at Alya’s house with orders for her to come along and bring her camera. Alya is obviously not going to pass whatever this is up and obeys eagerly.



  * Archelon leads the way all the way to the temple, where she barges right in with righteous indignation in her eyes and proceeds to rip verbal strips out of everyone there for causing Ladybug stress and making her job harder. The way they have been ignoring Ladybug’s clearly stated wishes is disrespectful in the extreme, and so is the way they treat Chat Noir. He is Ladybug’s partner and equal, not her subordinate, and the next person to call him that is going to get their butt beat with Archelon’s shield. Alya is, on orders, livestreaming the whole thing to the Ladyblog.



  * When Archelon is satisfied that the priests and warriors at the temple have been sufficiently chastened and Skulk is satisfied that Ladybug and Chat Noir will stay in the tent and enjoy their movie night even if he leaves, the two of them meet up and share a fist bump. Mission accomplished.



  * Ladybug is annoyed at first, but she has to admit, just having a few hours to relax and watch a movie with her kitty has done wonders for her stress levels and mental state, and she knows Chat Noir started purring about a quarter of the way through the movie and then never stopped, she’s never seen him so boneless looking.



  * The next day, she’s refreshed and ready for whatever comes her way. The priests? Not an issue. Hawkmoth? Better watch his back. Lila?



  * … Actually where is Lila?



  * See, it turns out that she’s actually living with her father and stepmother while her mother is in the hospital. And her mom just got out of the hospital, has gotten a job and her feet back under her, and she’s ready for her daughter to come home. Lila gets unceremoniously shipped back that very day.



  * Lila’s mom, being significantly more attentive to her daughter than the father and stepmother were, notices some of Lila’s more concerning behaviors during the first few months they’re back together, and long story short Lila eventually ends up attending a specialized school for troubled teens. The kids back in Paris never have any idea what happened to her.



  * Cause see, the thing is, I know we all love to hate Lila. She’s the Umbridge to Hawkmoth’s Voldemort, we’re supposed to hate her. But she’s also a teenage girl. She’s not a supervillain, she’s a school bully, a toxic friend. And school bullies don’t get climactic final battles. Toxic friends don’t get their actions and lies displayed before all the world so that all might know their deeds and shun them. One day they just leave. And when you get some perspective, you’re happy for it. It doesn’t matter to you anymore except that it’s over.



  * With Lila gone, Alya starts to recover, to start to be confident and sure in herself again and see just how badly Lila had affected her and everyone. Just in time too, because Hawkmoth sends out a particularly difficult, dangerous akuma and Skulk and Archelon can’t get away to help.



  * That day, Wyvern the dragon heroine and Howler the monkey hero hit the streets as superheroes.



  * The dragon miraculous might not give you the ability to breathe fire, but Alya has a fire in her belly anyway. She is ready to prove that she’s more than what Lila tried to make her and Ladybug wasn’t wrong to trust her a second time.



  * Nino is really just having a great time with the monkey, to be honest. The two of them are an awesome team.



  * Meanwhile with the kingdom’s delegation, they’re searching for Ladybug’s identity. Discreetly. They’re not having a ton of luck, to be honest.



  * Also they just decided that the other miraculous wielders are just… foreign deities who are benevolent but not theirs, and friends of the goddess and her protector. They threw up a few tiny tabletop appeasement shrines in the corner of the courtyard and called it good. They also are very careful to not say anything that could even be kind of considered vaguely disparaging or condescending about Chat Noir in earshot of any of the miraculous wielders. Archelon’s threats were quite vivid.



  * Marinette just facepalmed when she saw the footage of what was going on while she and Chat were having their enforced movie night. She certainly appreciates the sentiment, but you did not have to make sure that it hit the internet, _Kagami_.



  * Kagami, if asked, would say that the point was to keep the movie night from ending up on the Ladyblog and the dressing down making it onto the internet was just a nice bonus. Kagami may or may not be lying through her teeth. Those were _Skulk’s_ priorities, at least.



  * The kingdom delegation’s opinion on Hawkmoth and Mayura, on the other hand, can be boiled down to malevolent gods at best and literal devils who inflicted the original curse on their goddess queen at worst. 



  * The musical performances to the glory of Ladybug are now occasionally interspersed with sermons on the evils of Hawkmoth. That is ironically getting them more attention, sympathy, and interest than any of the other stuff because, frankly, everyone agrees that Hawkmoth is the literal worst and they enjoy hearing someone else say it for once.



  * Hawkmoth’s irritation is becoming even more obvious, if the way he’s guiding nearly every akuma he makes to go after the temple is any indication.



  * Joke’s on him, the more the temple gets smashed, the more often they preach about his evils.



  * Gabriel Agreste, for entirely unrelated reasons, has forbidden Adrien from stepping foot on temple grounds. Which, you know, he hadn’t been planning to anyway because he knew they made Ladybug stressed, but now he wants to because his dad said he couldn’t.



  * This is actually very weird, he’s never really reacted to something like that before and he’s not sure how he feels about it.



  * Plagg is cackling with glee. Finally his chosen is acting like a cat! Contrary little bleeps every last one of them and proud of it! 



  * The other thing is the bee miraculous. Pollen has been having a really rough time in the wake of Miracle Queen, to the point where everyone is worried for her. The other kwamiis think she needs a new chosen, a permanent one, to heal from the mental and spiritual wounds Chloe’s betrayal left. Losing one’s chosen is bad enough, but to have one turn traitor? The pain of it could break her miraculous if something isn’t done.



  * Ladybug asked Chat Noir to find a new chosen for Pollen, as a show of confidence, but it’s a lot harder than she makes it look. No one he can think of is both trustworthy enough to entrust with the already hurting kwamii and a good fit for her powers.



  * He ends up carrying the bee miraculous with him when he blatantly disobeys his father’s orders and visits the temple to walk around the gardens, to contemplate his options. His first four choices already have miraculouses (he picked two of them) so he picks a quiet spot amongst the flowers and sits down to contemplate who is left.



  * At that exact moment there is an akuma attack on the temple, because of course there is. Adrien only barely manages to not get squished, and the bee miraculous is sent flying. 



  * He of course immediately goes off to battle, assuming the bee is buried under rubble and it would be time he can’t afford to waste to dig it out, planning to come back and get it after the battle.



  * Unbeknownst to him, he was spotted hurtling towards battle by the very priest that Ladybug blew her top at a while back, who was trying to return the Lord of Destructions’s box before he ran off, and failed.



  * Now this particular priest is named Zach, and he’s actually a pretty darn nice guy. He’s eighteen, the youngest member of the original delegation, chosen for his extraordinary skill in magic. He’s polite, respectful, intelligent, and the single most stubborn person on the face of the planet. Drove his teachers up the wall growing up, because once he decided on something there was no budging him and he would politely, respectfully, do whatever the crap he wanted and no one could talk him out of it.



  * He’s also incurably curious. Zach didn’t originally _intend_ to open the box. He intended to return it to the Lord of Destruction unopened. But he just had to know what his goddess’s protector had been carrying into the temple, when neither he nor the goddess actually seemed to like it there.



  * Zach opened the box, and Pollen came out.



  * Now Zach is absolutely one hundred percent convinced that this was some sort of a test and he’s going to be smitten on the spot for disrespect to the lord of destruction. He falls flat on his face and begs for mercy.



  * Pollen is not quite sure what to make of this boy who’s prostrated himself on the ground before her, but he’s certainly not going to be smitten or whatever, so would he please get up off the ground and talk to her face to face?



  * Eventually she persuades Zach to sit up, and the two of them get to chatting. Pollen thinks she likes this one. He’s clever, stubborn, and dignified.



  * If Zach knew what she was thinking, he would like to know how exactly sitting in the dirt with mud on his face from prostrating himself is dignified, but he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. Pollen, if called upon to explain herself, would explain that dignity is not what you do, it’s how you do it. _Obviously_.



  * Then there’s another explosion, and Zach throws himself across Pollen and her miraculous entirely instinctively, even though of the two of them he is definitely the more squishy one.



  * It is at that moment that Pollen decides that she definitely likes this one and she’s keeping him. She grabs her miraculous and shoves it in his hair, good thing he’s got enough for that.



  * “Wait, what?” “No time! Transform by saying ‘Pollen, buzz on,’ power is venom, you can only use it once before you’ll have to detransform. We’ll call you… Bombus, that’s a good name for you.” “What?” “Oh just say ‘buzz on’.”



  * Zach, aka Bombus, is really, really confused, but he gamely goes into battle anyway. Having had actual battle training rather than just on-the-job or martial arts, he’s actually very helpful, and as a bonus is too busy fighting for his life to try and bow to Ladybug or some other such nonsense.



  * Ladybug thinks Chat Noir has picked a good one. Chat Noir is trying to figure out how to tell her that there was no picking involved.



  * In the aftermath of the battle Chat Noir drags Bombus off to find out who he is and what’s going on here. Zach is one hundred percent convinced that he really is going to be smitten now. Pollen is unrepentant.



  * Chat Noir had originally planned to take the miraculous back, but… Bombus was a really good ally. And Pollen is absolutely glowing with happiness.



  * There are a number of terms and conditions Chat Noir makes Zach swear to, but in the end… Pollen does get to keep Zach. It’ll be good for both of them.



  * When the appeasement shrine to Bombus goes up, Zach abruptly finds any and every excuse to avoid that section of the temple. It’s so embarrassing! Is this how Ladybug feels? No wonder she never visits the temple if she can manage it! 



  * Also, with the help of Pollen, Zach comes to a few conclusions about the true identity of Ladybug. With the information he has now, he figures that rather than being a reincarnation of the goddess of creation, she’s the prophetess of the goddess of creation, and the channel through which the goddess interacts with the world. Basically a slightly less literal version of “goddess incarnate”. She’s still divine, still the rightful queen, but not actually a goddess in and of herself. Still incorrect, but a lot less incorrect.



  * When he explains this to Ladybug herself later on, she decides to take what she can get. At least he’s not trying to worship her mid-battle anymore like the rest of the priests do. She could live without being addressed as “Prophet-queen Ladybug” but it’s better than goddess, and Bombus has even started leaving the titles off outside of battle as well as inside of it.



  * Archelon, Skulk, Wyvern, and Howler all like Bombus too, even if he is really awkwardly formal the first few battles before lightening up.



  * Chloe’s tantrum when Bombus hits the news is legendary. She manages to destroy three rooms, screams at anyone who gets within ten feet of her for a full week, and would have gotten akumatized twice if Ladybug hadn’t been keeping an eye on her and swiping the butterflies.



  * Chloe’s mom eventually decides that this is not worth dealing with and Chloe ends up getting her wish to go to New York. To a boarding school. Bustier’s class rejoiced.



  * I seem to get rid of a lot of the school-age antagonists by sending them to boarding school. Whatever works, I suppose.



  * On a random note, I want one of my miraculous holders to be religious. Don’t really care which religion, so long as it’s monotheistic, partially for self-projection purposes, but mostly for the purpose of having whichever one of them it is quote the “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that,” line from the first Avengers movie and one hundred percent mean it. Dunno, I think it would be funny. Probably wouldn’t be Marinette or Adrien, I feel like that’s the kind of thing that would affect their characterization and also make being worshipped even more stressful for them. Probably also not Kagami, so far as I know most of the most common religions in Japan are polytheistic, which doesn’t mean it _couldn’t_ be Kagami, it just also makes it unlikely. So that leaves Luka, Nino, and Alya. I think it’s Alya, because I think she’s the type who would know that line and take great joy in being able to use it in real life and mean it.



  * Whether she says the line as Alya or as Wyvern is up to you, but personally? I think it would be funnier if she did it as Wyvern. The theological implications of _that_ would make the priests heads spin.



  * Speaking of theological implications, Zach knows full well that he is the youngest and least experienced of the priests in Paris and his new revelations on the nature of Ladybug and her divinity would be laughed off at best and declared heretical at worst if he tried presenting them as Zach, and had the potential to cause a rift in the religion if he presented them as Bombus. And that is the absolute _last_ thing anyone needs here. He gets to suffer in silence, the poor guy. Pollen is sympathetic but secretly thinks it’s really funny.



  * Ladybug and Chat Noir are already mostly sufficient for most akumas. Ladybug and Chat Noir plus Skulk, Archelon, Wyvern, Howler, and Bombus? Flat-out overkill for pretty much everything. Marinette is enjoying more free time than she’s had since she first found the earrings. 



  * Adrien would like to say that he’s enjoying more free time now that the akuma battles are shorter and easier, but that would be a lie, because he only has free time when he’s sneaky. He is, however, having a great deal of fun running around as Chat Noir more often.



  * He is often joined by Archelon, who enjoys the chance to get out from under her mother’s thumb for a while just like Chat does, and by Bombus, who wants to get out of the temple for a while but doesn’t appreciate the looks his priest robes get him on the street. Better looked at for being a superhero/prophet than looked at for not being in possession of street clothes. 



  * Skulk and Howler join occasionally, and they all have fun horsing around. With Wyvern it’s about fifty fifty whether she’ll show up as a hero or as a civilian, camera in hand.



  * Ladybug only joins them once in a blue moon, but everyone’s always thrilled when she does.



  * Hawkmoth is getting either bored or desperate, hard to say which. He’s sending out one or more akumas every day, but they’re all kind of weird, and weak enough that even back when they were first starting out LB and CN probably wouldn’t have needed more than an hour or two to take them out, much less now, experienced and with five backup heroes on call. They’ve each been taking like ten minutes tops, leaving the heroes free to go about their days. Wyvern, Archelon, and Chat Noir have even been having competitions to see who can get the akumatized object first.



  * Ladybug does not trust this one bit. Either he’s planning something big or he’s going to pull something desperate, and either way, they need to be ready, _Chat_.



  * Also there’s been very little sign of Mayura since Miracle Queen, which is really weird. They’d expected Mayura to get her miraculous fixed and immediately start making the heroes' lives more difficult, but it just… hasn’t happened. Oh, she’s appeared or sent an amok once or twice, but nothing big, nothing important.



  * This would make sense if her miraculous was still broken, but Hawkmoth got the grimoire, the miraculous is almost certainly fixed by now. So what are they holding off for?



  * He’s holding off until he can pull another Scarlet Moth attempt, but his best tool to cause the kind of upset that would require has been shipped unceremoniously to Italy and the most consistent creator of situations that give him openings for akumas has been shipped unceremoniously to New York. If he tries to cause that kind of thing as Gabriel Agreste, it’ll cause a big problem for his reputation and his bottom line, and they can’t have that at all. 



  * Trying to get Adrien to cause something like that is right out. He’d never do it, and if he did he’d catch on about the whole Hawkmoth thing pretty quickly. Gabriel is smart enough to know that Adrien would turn on him in a heartbeat if he found out, which is why he keeps Adrien so busy. If he’s always in lessons, he won’t have enough time to snoop.



  * This is both an awful thing to do and entirely ineffective, as we, the audience, well know. Gabriel is just lucky that Adrien would rather run around doing parkour in black leather than snoop in his dad’s things. Most of the time.



  * Eventually he says heck with it and sends out a really freaking dangerous akuma. One that affects the entire city at once, is impossible to catch, and has absolutely no qualms about using human shields or about collateral damage. One that the heroes can't even touch.



  * Mayura makes another appearance, ready and raring to go, with a sentimonster that is basically a flying sniper nest.



  * And the miraculous team are out of practice. They’ve gotten so used to easy akuma that they can sweep in ten minutes that they’re caught entirely off guard by this massive threat, and it costs them dearly.



  * Ladybug gets shot, her lucky charm stolen. The rest of the team is forced to scatter and hide. Chat Noir runs away limping, his lady in his arms.



  * He loses his transformation on some random rooftop, but Ladybug is out cold, she can’t yell at him for revealing his identity. She loses hers too while Adrien is trying to perform first aid. He’s too busy trying to save her life to care, even though he one hundred percent recognizes her.



  * He always thought the day he and his lady learned each other's identities would be happy. Not, not this. He never wanted this.



  * At Tikki and Plagg’s urging, he switches miraculous with her just long enough to cast a lucky charm (it gives him a first aid kit, and he laughs bitterly) and a miraculous ladybug.



  * Marinette wakes up with a gasp.



  * She totally would be freaking out that A, Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste and B, he knows her identity, but there’s no time, they have to get back to the battle.



  * She’s freaking out anyway as they switch miraculous back and try to plan what to do next. None of their normal tactics are working, and even with all five of their secondary heroes, they are outmatched.



  * It is at this point that Ladybug gets beaned in the head with a paper airplane. With something written on the wing…



  * “Chat Blanc can’t happen, the kooks in the temple made sure of it. By the way, don’t you think it’s about time mini-me got a taste of the future?” It’s signed with a little picture of Fluff.



  * The vicious smile that blooms across Ladybug’s face is honestly frightening.



  * Alix and the Rabbit Miraculous are duly retrieved, and then the battle is on once again.



  * Bunnyx turns out to be just what they needed to turn the tides, and soon enough Mayura is forced into a retreat, the akuma and amok are broken and purified, and a miraculous ladybug has restored the city.



  * All the heroes are absolutely exhausted by this point, and all of them just quietly drag themselves home. They all need to eat, but none of them are hungry. It was a long, hard day, and right now the only thing most of them want is to sleep, and possibly not wake up.



  * Marinette bolts awake a few hours later muffling a scream of mingled elation and frustration because _Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste_.



  * Anyway, there is much freaking out by the superhero duo, then the two of them meet up and they freak out some more.



  * When Adrien/Chat asks about the “Chat Blanc” thing from the note Ladybug/Marinette hesitates a moment, but eventually spills everything. It feels really good to get it off her chest.



  * The note from the future Bunnyx said that it couldn’t happen anymore because of something the temple people did, but just in case, they decide to not publicly date as superheroes or civilians to leave themselves less vulnerable.



  * In private, however? The affection of Adrien and Marinette combined with the complete and utter trust of Ladybug and Chat Noir makes them the single cutest/grossest couple ever to be a couple in private. And oh boy, you thought the pining was bad before… 



  * Also, partially to kind of reward everyone for doing so well against that last akuma and partially to start integrating Bunnyx into the team dynamic, Ladybug takes a leaf out of Skulk’s book.



  * They call for a team meeting on some random rooftop, and when the others get there, there’s a bedsheet on the wall and a projector pointing at it, blankets and pillows and movie night food and a very smug looking Ladybug and Chat Noir.



  * There’s a bit of an argument about what movie to watch (Bunnyx wants horror, everyone else realizes that watching a horror movie with superpowers is a really bad idea. Wyvern is pulling for a superhero movie. Bombus is really confused.)



  * Eventually they decide on like, _The Princess Bride_ or whatever the equivalent (often quoted, often referenced, people are absolutely appalled if you say you haven’t seen it, everyone knows what it is, etc) would be after it comes out Bombus, having lived in the isolated magical kingdom his entire life, has not seen it.



  * And they all have a really good night.



  * The priests’ hunt for Ladybug’s identity is not going well. They can’t resort to scrying spells, that would be the utter height of disrespect to their goddess, but nothing else they’re trying is working.



  * A few of them got desperate enough to try and tail her to her home or where she detransforms, but that was doomed to failure every time. Ladybug almost seems to have a radar for people trying to find out her identity (after so long hiding it she probably does) and she manages to lose them every time.



  * Zach has been telling everyone that he’s really uncomfortable with going against Ladybug’s wishes like this, but seeing as he is the single most junior person there, he basically is getting the equivalent of “You’ll understand when you’re older, little one” at every turn. This is highly frustrating for obvious reasons.



  * He is the other half of why Ladybug seems to have a radar. He absolutely warns the prophet-queen when they’re going to try if he knows ahead of time or if he spots them. Ladybug appreciates this greatly.



  * This is going nowhere quickly.



  * Life continues on as it was for a while, Hawkmoth returned to the easy akumas and the team is once again enjoying their free time, if a bit more warily than before. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, etc, etc.



  * Weekly team training is a go. Ladybug has Bombus handle it, as the only one with actual combat training.



  * Bombus is evil, in case you were wondering. The others all hate his guts for weeks, but they do improve. And there’s usually snacks after. They’re teenagers, they’d put up with a lot for snacks.



  * One of their practices, once everybody is busy working, Bombus asks to speak with Ladybug in private for a moment. When they’re alone, he asks, quietly and respectfully, if she is just uncomfortable with the worship, or if she genuinely hates the idea of being a queen that much.



  * And Ladybug stops, and gives the question the thought it deserves. The truth is that it’s a little of both. The worship is uncomfortable in the extreme, but she also isn’t sure she’d actually be very good at being a queen. Leaving aside that she doesn’t want to do it at all, the skillsets of an aspiring designer and a queen-to-be do not have much overlap.



  * Bombus also stops and gives this the thought it deserves. And he tells Ladybug that he doesn’t know much about designing, but he knows that she’s a fantastic leader, so clearly she can’t be quite as unqualified as she thinks. Likewise, while there is nothing forcing her to take up the throne (it’s not like the priests can make her do anything) Bombus, at least, thinks she would be a good queen, and would be honored to serve her if she chose to assume her throne. And if she doesn’t, he’s still honored to serve as her teammate.



  * They head back to join the others, and Marinette puts the conversation out of her mind. But it… sticks with her.



  * Then one day, Ladybug and Chat Noir are a little less careful than they should be and Chat ends up complaining about his cruddy homelife where one of the priests can hear, and Ladybug follows it up with a half-facetious suggestion that he share her parents, since they already love him.



  * Chat follows that up with a cheeky reminder that that would put a crimp in his plans to become their son-in-law, which Ladybug smiles and rolls her eyes fondly at, but the damage is done.



  * The priest who heard it, of course, runs back to the temple at high speed to share what he heard.



  * The queen retrieving delegation comes to three conclusions.



  * First, if Chat Noir’s home life is cruddy then it just became even more important to retrieve their goddess queen and her protector and get them home post haste. The lord of destruction may not be the main deity, but leaving him like that is absolute anathema.



  * Second, Chat Noir knows who Ladybug is.



  * Third, with the proper explanations and motivation, they might be able to convince Chat Noir to tell them. All they want is to bring their goddess home and him along with her, surely once he understands that he’ll be willing to help?



  * So they wait for one of the evenings when Chat Noir is our parkouring alone, and the best orators of the delegation go out to meet him and make their argument.



  * The priests are intelligent. They are persuasive. They are eloquent. They lay it out, step by step, exactly how much better life will be for Chat Noir and Ladybug both if they return back to the hidden kingdom to take their rightful places. How much good they can do for the people who have waited so long for their rightful rulers. How many freedoms would be afforded to them. How, should he so choose, no one would ever be able to find Chat Noir if he didn’t want to. How he could escape for good. All they need is for Chat to tell them Ladybug’s name, and they’ll take care of the rest. Ladybug would never have to know how they found her name.



  * So Adrien is being offered everything he could ever want. To never have to stop being Chat Noir ever again, to have a new home far from his father’s reach, far from modeling and crazy fans and the cold, empty halls of his childhood home where he had never been really happy. He’s being offered power, respect, and wealth even greater than what he’d be leaving behind with no strings attached. He’s being offered freedom, education, family. He’s being offered the chance to never have to lose Plagg. He’s being offered a place at the side of the girl of his dreams, his lady, forever. And all he has to do is break Ladybug’s trust. 



  * And he’s tempted, so, so tempted, don’t let anyone tell you he isn’t. But… even if Ladybug never knew that he’d betrayed her trust, he would, and he’d never be able to live with himself.



  * So he tells them no. And to not ask again.



  * No one realized that Marinette was there and heard almost the entire conversation until she transforms and backs Chat Noir up, chewing them out for trying this and warning them that the consequences of doing so again would not be pretty. And adds on that even if she did want to go with them, she’s not going anywhere until Hawkmoth is gone.
  * Then she and Chat leave for somewhere private where they can both have slight breakdowns.



  * The priests are… neither pleased nor really surprised by this response. They would have preferred to get this over with easily, of course, but they concede that it’s the black cat’s job to be loyal to the ladybug above all else. His refusal isn’t optimal, but they can work around it.



  * So it’s on to plan b: Eliminate the main thing that’s holding their queen here: Hawkmoth.



  * The queen feels it is her duty to defend her childhood home against this guy and won’t leave until he’s gone? Fine, let’s get rid of him. Time to pull out all the stops.



  * Parisians are alarmed when the armies start coming over and massive scrying rituals searching for the identity and location of Hawkmoth start getting set up in every public park.



  * Ladybug and Chat Noir have several concerns. Chat Noir would also like to know why they didn’t do this when they were trying to find out who Ladybug was. 



  * Hawkmoth is outright panicking.



  * See, the miraculous have glamors, but those only do so much. They’ll hold up to quite a bit, being connected to primordial concepts will do that, but against the magic and will of what’s nearly an entire nation of mages, after there haven’t been widespread mages in literal centuries? That’d be pushing it. 



  * A scrying array of this size hasn’t been set up since before the age of _Queen Ladybird_ , but they have no other option. Hawkmoth must be defeated so that their rightful queen can assume her throne. So they are going to find him, and when they do, their armies will exact vengeance for his part in keeping their queen trapped.



  * That’s not going to go the way that they plan, but we knew that already.



  * The miraculous holders are nonplussed, to put it mildly. Zach is now escaping the temple as Bombus at any and every opportunity because he just knows that this is going to end badly and doesn’t want to get caught up in it when it does.



  * The citizens of Paris are kind of freaking out. And the government would like to know who let a foreign army in, because the paperwork is all filed neatly and in order but no one remembers signing off on it.



  * Now, the problem with trying to track Hawkmoth before this is that they don’t have anything of his to track him with. He never appears in public, and the butterflies don’t work either. A purified butterfly leads back to Ladybug. A post-possession pre-purification butterfly leads back to whoever it was possessing. The only way to use a butterfly to track Hawkmoth would be to catch one before it possessed anyone, and then keep it from possessing anyone while the scrying spell is cast. This is a lot harder than it sounds.



  * First, you have to get someone angry/frightened/miserable enough for Hawkmoth to take the bait. Then, you have to spot the butterfly before it grabs something and the angry/frightened/miserable person has to make it back to emotional equilibrium in like a second. Then you have to hold the butterfly in place, without letting it touch anything, long enough to work the spell. Then you have to keep the butterfly from touching anything for as long as the spell is operating. And finally, then you have to release or destroy it without letting it possess anyone still.



  * A herculean feat to put it mildly, which is why the kwamiis never suggested trying it.



  * However, the priests are determined. And perfectly willing to dogpile anyone who gets possessed in the attempt (see: Ladybug’s first interaction with Zach) until their goddess comes along to deliver her faithful followers.



  * This has ended badly more than once. The only reason it hasn’t ended badly more often is that they have a schedule and a sign up sheet available online to all of the warriors and priests, Zach included.



  * Zach is not going anywhere near those train wrecks without being transformed as Bombus, but he does routinely email the schedule to Ladybug.



  * Ladybug appreciates having an informant, but she cannot be there every hour of every day and sometimes she’s busy enough or tired enough that she figures they can suffer the consequences of their own stupidity for a half hour or so while she finishes up a commission or takes a test or something. She’s only human, after all.



  * After a few weeks of this and more close calls than he likes to think about, Hawkmoth stops sending out akuma for anything short of world-shattering rage.



  * Akuma battles have therefore become rather rare, but long and hard when they do happen.



  * The team training is actually very useful for that. And team parkour competitions and races have also become more common, because they are all very tense waiting for the other shoe to drop and roof running is great for stress relief. 



  * The whole city, the parts that aren’t directly involved in the conflict, are very nervous. This isn’t sustainable. Something’s going to give eventually, and most of them have lived in a city with Hawkmoth long enough to know that when it does it’s not going to be pretty.



  * But for now, things are sort of starting to settle into a… baseline, of sorts.



  * Bunnyx is integrating into the team well. They’re all getting better with their powers. Wyvern has started trying to matchmake Archelon and Bombus, to mixed results. Perhaps out of self-defense, Archelon has started latching on hard to Skulk. What Skulk thinks of all this is unknown. He’s actually getting pretty good with that flute of his, though.



  * Hawkmoth is plotting. He knows as well as anyone that something is going to have to give, and soon, and if he doesn’t make his move that something will not be in his favor.



  * So he plots. The odds are not in his favor, he can admit that. All his favorite tools are out of his reach, and one wrong move will end with him and Mayura both in chains.



  * Then he gets an idea. An awful idea. Hawkmoth gets a wonderful, awful idea.



  * And makes the Grinch face.



  * The next akuma attack seems normal, not even very destructive, except, for whatever reason, they cannot find the item for love nor money. When the heroes are tired, frustrated, and not operating their best, Hawkmoth shows himself.



  * Obviously they drop everything to chase him, all of them getting second winds that come with that kind of adrenaline and also getting tunnel vision enough to not realize that the “akuma” vanishes behind them, and Mayura poked her head out of a hidden crevice and catches her feather with a smirk.



  * Hawkmoth lures the heroes through the streets, then down below the streets. Deeper and deeper they go, only barely managing to keep him in their sights.



  * Finally, he comes to a stop in a seemingly random room, strangely well lit, but empty, with only one entrance. 



  * “It’s over Hawkmoth, we have you surrounded.” “I beg to differ. It’s only just begun.” And Mayura emerges from the tunnel behind them.



  * The heroes have been training, but so have the villains. In the blink of an eye, faster than anyone realized was possible, Hawkmoth has all but thrown an akuma at Mayura to make her Catalyst, then she in turn transforms him into Scarlet Moth and he unleashes a swarm.



  * They are one hundred percent banking on sheer panic to do their jobs for them, but getting even one hero would spell disaster for the rest.



  * For a moment, it might have even worked. Then suddenly Ladybug is whipping through the air, catching a dozen butterflies in every swing and rallying her teammates, and they _fight_.



  * And for a while, it looks like they’re winning. Hawkmoth and Mayura are outnumbered by quite a bit, and there aren’t any real distractions down here that would open them up for akumatization after all. 



  * Then Mayura gets Cat Noir from behind in a cheap shot. He isn’t even really badly hurt, gets right back up within a few minutes, but he goes down hard. He looks _dead_.



  * And an akuma enters Ladybug’s yoyo.



  * Ladybug is fighting. She’s fighting as hard as she can. But she’s starting to lose. Hawkmoth knows exactly what buttons to push, how to make people tick. And he’s been fighting her for long enough that he knows especially how to make her tick. He knows her weaknesses, the chinks in her armor. Ladybug is losing.



  * “Ladybug!” then suddenly Wyvern is there, “Ladybug, you have to fight this. You’re the best superhero to ever live, and you’re my hero specifically. You’re stronger than him, you’re better than him, you can’t let him win!”



  * “You got this Ladybug!” Howler. “This man is not worth the dirt on your shoes, and you will defeat him.” Archelon. “We believe in you.” Skulk. “Kick his butt!” Bunnyx.



  * “Ladybug. Your… your _highness_.” Bombus, “I meant what I told you. You are a leader I am proud to follow and… and the only queen I will ever wish to serve. Your highness, your majesty, _please_. You can beat this.”



  * “My Lady,” Chat Noir, “Please. I can’t do this without you. Come back to me. I… I love you.”



  * Ladybug stops. Stares at Chat Noir. Slowly approaches him, butterfly mask flickering. She stares deeply into his eyes, searching for sincerity.



  * “I love you too.” A kiss.



  * The butterfly is expelled violently, and Chat grabs it in a cataclysm. Hawkmoth staggers at the sudden destruction of his akuma, and Archelon bashes him over the head with her shield. Mayura tries to help him and gets Wyvern’s sword levered at her throat.



  * Ladybug pulls back from her kiss, blinks, and smiles. She and Chat Noir share a quick hug, then she turns to Hawkmoth and Mayura, tall and proud.



  * “It’s over.”



  * Hawkmoth and Mayura end up dragged out into the light, arrested and divested of their miraculous before the flashing cameras. 



  * Chat Noir is noticeably stunned when the miraculous comes off and Gabriel Agreste is revealed, but he holds it together, if only barely. 



  * Ladybug notices that her partner is struggling, and of course she knows why, she’s just holding it together better. She uses the excuse of taking the miraculous and putting them back where they belong as an excuse to get the two of them out of there and back to the bakery. She holds him while he shakes.



  * In quite possibly the only decent thing he’s done for his son since he became Hawkmoth, maybe ever, Gabriel admits publicly to the fact that he kept Adrien busy and at a distance because he knew Adrien would turn on him if he knew.



  * This doesn’t kill all the anger and suspicion directed at Adrien, but it does blunt it. 



  * Incidentally Gabriel goes down for child neglect and breaking labor laws as well as terrorism.



  * One of the priests finally got lucky and managed to catch Ladybug and Chat entering the bakery coming back from testifying against Hawkmoth, so they figured out the identities in play pretty quickly. 



  * Things get messy.



  * The first one to nearly call Ladybug “Queen Marinette” when he caught her transformed coming out of another long stressful session testifying against Hawkmoth very nearly got garrotted with a yoyo before Bombus, Skulk, and Howler managed to pull her off him. The girls and Chat Noir were no help stopping her. They were cheering her on.



  * After that the priests were mostly smart enough to not call her or Chat Noir by their names while they were transformed or vice versa, but that didn’t help much.



  * They don’t try to enter the bakery anymore after one of them did, Marinette shrieked, and her mom, on something of a hair trigger after some guy followed Adrien in and all but tackled Marinette when she tried to stop him, drove the guy from the building with a rolling pin.



  * So yeah, things get messy. There is another massive blowup, one that might have actually akumatized Ladybug where even Hawkmoth’s deliberate manipulations failed.



  * The other heroes get ferally defensive of Ladybug in the aftermath, and the priests all kind of hole up in the temple until things calm down a bit because crud, we may have actually genuinely ticked off the goddess.



  * Eventually, Ladybug sits down to finally have a long, serious talk with the priest in charge of the group sent to retrieve her. Bombus helps. They’re in there for hours without anyone being able to listen in. When they finally emerge, although neither of them is precisely happy, a plan has been hammered out and a compromise has been reached.



  * Marinette Dupain-Cheng, with the full approval of her parents, leaves for a highly prestigious early admissions-full ride scholarship with a highly regarded fashion school the next school year. A few days later, Ladybug has a massive sendoff by the people of Paris before leaving to assume her throne.



  * Adrien sticks around just long enough to deal with all the legal ramifications of his father’s defeat and imprisonment, then quietly leaves for boarding school to escape the city where he’ll only ever be known as Hawkmoth’s son. Chat Noir joins his lady shortly thereafter.



  * Literally the very first thing Marinette does when she gets there is institutes an elected body to handle most of the actual governing to the surprise of absolutely no one who was paying attention.



  * The eventual royal wedding is the event of the century, the superhero queen wedding her gallant knight in a ceremony that has quite literally all the stops pulled out and sends all of the kingdom and Paris into paroxysms of absolute joy.



  * By contrast, the marriage of Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste is small, and private, with only their closest friends and family in attendance. Marinette wears a dress she made herself, and Adrien cannot keep his eyes off of her.



  * Going onward, to the outside world Adrien and Marinette Agreste are the epitome of a power couple, taking the fashion world by storm and emerging every so often to send everyone into a tailspin before retreating back to their mysterious home. They are highly protective of their privacy, you see.



  * Meanwhile, to the kingdom, Queen Ladybug and King Chat Noir, known to their subjects and only their subjects as Marinette and Adrien Dupain-Cheng, are kind and fair rulers, and with the ladybug and black cat miraculous restored, the kingdom flourishes to levels not seen since the days of Queen Ladybird. They lead the kingdom into a new era, and are beloved for it.



  * Alya, Nino, Luka, Kagami, Alix, and Zach are all wildly successful in their chosen fields, marry happily, and do a lot of good in the world, both as heroes and not. And also dote on one another’s and the royal couple’s children completely shamelessly.



  * And when the royal couple finally die, old, in their sleep, and within days of one another, they are mourned the entire world over as they remember just how much Ladybug and Chat Noir, Marinette and Adrien, did for them.



  * In the aftermath, Louis, their oldest and the only one to share his mother’s passion for design, inherits their fashion house. He’d really already been running it for years since his parents chose to withdraw from the public eye. His eldest daughter and favorite nephew both show talent for design too, and he hopes that they’ll be willing to take over the company someday themselves.



  * Alina, their youngest granddaughter, brave, creative, and kind to a fault, inherits the ladybug earrings and the queenship. Her father, Marinette and Adrien’s son-in-law, takes the mantle of the black cat and serves as her regent until she comes of age or a better candidate can be found. 



  * Emma and Hugo, the younger of their children, inherit the rest of the miracle box. Emma takes up the butterfly, and Hugo, the turtle, and the two of them follow the most closely in their parents footsteps, setting out to make the world a better place, in slightly more hands-on a fashion than their siblings.



  * In the end, Marinette and Adrien, Ladybug and Chat Noir, leave the world a brighter place than it was when they came, which really, is all we can ever hope to do.



**Author's Note:**

> As with all my outline fics, you can feel free to write something based on this and I will be thrilled, just be sure to give me credit! This will probably end up sprouting a bunch of one shots, so keep an eye out for that, too.


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